power wires touched, amp fried?

what's up all? i recently installed an amp in my truck. there is also a cap installed. little did i know, the terminals on the cap were loose and the power and ground accidently touched for a few seconds before i could move them. now, my sub amp will not come on. i didn't smell anything frying and there were no blown fuses in the amp or under the hood. any thoughts on what to look for or is the amp toast? thanks.

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Whatever you do, DO NOT let the white smoke leak out of the wires.....

This should not have hurt your amp.  It should have only taken out the fuse at your battery.  You really need to use a meter and check voltage at your amp.

i used my fluke to check for voltage at the amp. holding perfect voltage. as i said in my post, no fuses are blown and all of them are reading just fine.

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Whatever you do, DO NOT let the white smoke leak out of the wires.....

Hmmm power and ground touched for a few seconds   and no blown fuses

Keep us posted and let us know what happens

try taking the amp to a local car audio shop and have them bench test it.

could it be possible that even though the fuse under the hood didn't blow the short somehow "almost" blew the fuse as in not letting enough current run through? i have a 150a fuse under the hood and the thin strip in the fuse is discolored like it's gotten hot but my 4 channel still works fine. i haven't pulled the sub amp out yet for testing. i'll do that later this evening but i'm just trying to find some things to look for. i guess it's a good thing i've got an extra sub amp just like the one that probably got fried.

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Whatever you do, DO NOT let the white smoke leak out of the wires.....

It would be really strange if a short at the cap damaged the amp. A short is just that..a "short cut". Basically the  pos. and neg. touched and all the current that could leave the power supply (battery) and fit through the fuse and wires leaves no current left to get to the amp. If the fuse didn't blow thats a miricle. Now if you didn't have a fuse or if for some reason the fuse held up, wires/terminals could burn. Although this won't damage the amp it could cause resistance and not allow enough voltage to reach the amp.

Like others said check the voltage at the amp with a meter because many times you can't tell a blown fuse by looking at it with eyes alone. And as well you can't see what else is wrong until you trace with a DMM (meter). My bet is the amp survived.

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alright, i decided to go ahead and pull it out now while kinda slow at work. hooked it up on our test bench and low and behold......power! it powered up normaly and played just fine as it always has. i got to looking at the power and ground inputs and noticed on the power side there is an outline of the fork terminal where it screws down. i looked on the fork terminal on the power wire and it also had signs of arcing. so the only thing i can figure out is even though it was connected to the amp, the amp actually wasn't getting power. i feel alot better now that it works so for anyone out there that has had this kind of problem......check for good connection. just cause the terminals are getting power obviously doesn't mean the amp is.

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Whatever you do, DO NOT let the white smoke leak out of the wires.....

Did the fuse at your battery blow?  Do you HAVE a fuse on the power lead at your battery?

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3 posts up.........150a fuse under the hood. not blown. i figured out the problem. i'm still curious if a fuse can "partially" blow as in becoming more resistive to current flow but not completely blowing. i've seen fuses that apear to be blown as in the device not working but there is still contiuity between both sides of the fuse. change the fuse and it works again. as i said, i solved my problem but would still like to hear thoughts on this.

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Whatever you do, DO NOT let the white smoke leak out of the wires.....

Once driving home in my old Honda the car died and would not start. I had to buy a new battery to limp it home. I got frustrated troubleshooting it. 16+ volts at the alt, 10 volts at the battery with the car running. As it turns out, the fusible link from the alternator to battery had a hair line crack all the way through. My suggestion is if you have any weird new problems with the system, try replacing the fuse.

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My ex once told me I have a perfect face for radio.

Also check your cap it may look fine but under a load it mould give out. mine did this and it cost me alot of money. I replaced wires fuses and my amp before finding out it was the cap. cost me alot of money, but gave my some experience in proper trouble shooting. Try hooking it up without the cap.

Yes, agreed..

a fuse can "partially" blow. I don't really think that is the correct terminolgy however what can happen is the fuse burns but leaves a hair (like geep above) or a gap small enough for current to actually arc across. This can be misleading.

Another thing I see all the time is a "bad" fuse as oppossed to a "blown" fuse. The connection itself is open, but to the eye it looks perfect.

Recently I had a run of defective fuses...they metered ok but with any load placed on them would not allow any flow. This drove me a little nutty because a bunch of them in a row, brand new, were doing this. But because I use a METER to test everything I knew the meter doesn't lie. I tried a fuse I had in my toolbox and everything worked perfectly. So yes..this does happen.

Also, I usually don't say "I told you so's" but in this case it is a good one...I told you the amp was most likely good and glad to see it is. Use a meter to find the problem..it's usually something really simple and inexpensive to correct.

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